Alonso: Ferrari has not been too conservative

Fernando Alonso says he does not think Ferrari has been too conservative in recent years and expects the team's current approach to continue into 2015.

Ferrari has struggled with both its power unit and the aerodynamics of the F14 T this year, with it recently falling behind Williams into fourth in the constructors' championship. But Alonso does not believe the team's recent downturn is down to a reluctance to take risks over the past few seasons.

"I don't think so," Alonso said when asked if Ferrari had been too conservative since he joined in 2010. "I don't think there was any moment of those years where we didn't take a risk. In fact I think from the end of 2011 we had more or less the same message; that we take risks. We were quite aggressive with the design of the 2012 car with the pull rod at the front, with a different concept for the rear exhaust, so I don't think we weren't aggressive enough.

"We just need to put some things together, keep improving the car, the factory, the facilities and make ourselves a stronger team with new ideas and new people coming, hopefully."

Over the summer it was confirmed Luca Marmorini, the man behind Ferrari's power unit this year, had left the company. Alonso fully backs any staff changes at Ferrari as they are made by people he trusts.

"Obviously all the changes all the team does are always on the direction to improve things and make us more competitive and stronger. So if the team decided to replace one man it's because they think that the new entry will be better, that's what we hope.

"Obviously for this year the power units are frozen so we don't expect any big improvement but for next year we need to unlock some of the potential from the power unit because we are not at the performance that some of our performance have. Hopefully the new people can find this extra horsepower for next year."

Alonso is not expecting Ferrari to achieve a big improvement in any individual race in 2014 but thinks everything it does now has relevance to next year's campaign.

"I think we always have little improvements race after race but they are quite small updates. We are in a learning experience for next year's car so I don't think there will be a big improvement to the last races. Obviously any improvement helps but I don't think it will change too much."